


Unspoken

by bearonthecouch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Art, Beginnings, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pre-Star Wars: Rebels, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25508566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: All art is personal.
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Sabine Wren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Unspoken

“Do you… want to talk?”

The teenage girl glances backward without pausing in the sweeping arc of the spraypaint can in her hand. 

Hera watches as the bright orange paint lights up the dirty grey wall of the crumbling building they stand outside. The narrow alleyway is cluttered with trash and overlooked by a tangle of fire escapes and broken windows. It hardly fits the heroic image the half-broken group of ragtag cells fighting the Empire wishes they could project. But maybe Sabine’s painting can at least brighten things up a bit. 

Sabine’s abstract layers of orange and pink and blue cover most of the wall, and when she’s done, after locking the paint can into one of the holsters strapped to her armor, she sits down on one of the fire escapes, sullen and reclusive.

But she leaves enough space for Hera to sit down next to her. The Twi’lek takes advantage of the opportunity and tucks herself into the little square of metal and plascrete. 

Sabine glares at her.

“I like the painting,” Hera says simply. Sabine shrugs. “It’s good propaganda.”

“It’s supposed to be.”

“It’s more than that. It’s personal.”

“All art is personal.”

“Sabine, do you think I can’t recognize a revenge fantasy when I’m standing in front of the half a building it takes up?”

“Whatever.”

“You don’t have to hold it all in, you know. You don’t have to confront it alone.”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“All of us have our stories, Sabine. Our reasons to rebel.”

Sabine never talks about her stint in the Imperial Academy, but she’s hardly the first cadet to defect. Enough have that Hera figures she can infer the broad strokes of her new ward’s story even if she never utters a word of it. 

It bleeds into her artwork anyway, all the helplessness and rage, swirling together in the mixed colors drying on the plascrete surface of the wall. Sabine fights a war with every push on the button of a can of paint.

Hera scans the skull-like masks of the stormtroopers looming over half of Sabine’s latest work. They march through a river of blood, with eerie precision. Sabine’s orange starbird flares out into a wave of destructive explosions that clash violently against those same troopers.

Sabine hates Imperial officers with a precise and calculating rage that is highly disconcerting to find in someone so young. She rigs and triggers her improvised explosive devices without second thought, and shows little remorse for her actions.

Yet Hera has hope for the girl despite all of that. The Sabine who fights like a trained Imperial recedes and transforms into something else entirely when she becomes the Sabine who loses herself in making art. And though neither Sabine talks much, to Hera or anyone else, her messages are anything but hidden. The words are imprinted in the rumbles of explosive aftershocks; her stories are told in the arcs and lines of paintings large and small. Hera likes to imagine that these works of violence and art weave together to kindle some sort of healing in her young protege. 

“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me,” she says, as Sabine squirms uncomfortably next to her. They are sitting close together on the narrow step, bodies pressed against one another in the confined space. Hera rests her hand on Sabine’s knee, and the girl hisses through clenched teeth but doesn’t protest. Hera looks into the girl’s eyes, and Sabine neither blinks nor looks away. “I hope you know that you can trust me,” Hera says. 

Sabine says nothing for a long moment. Her fingers sketch an invisible design on her pants leg. “I know,” she finally agrees. 

Hera smiles. 


End file.
